If you’re continuing to host your servers in-house, you could be putting your business’ future on the line. Why not spread the risk?

Do you have a plan for hardware failure?

Yes, you’ve invested significantly in the technology you’re using, and the environment you’re keeping it in, but with your application running over just one server – where’s your continuity plan? You may even have insurance to protect the hardware, but when the server blows up and your business systems go down – have you calculated the cost to your business in terms of day to day operations?

The truth is, you can only ensure business continuity if you have a failover system in place – and that means more than doubling an already large IT bill. Most businesses can’t afford that level of infrastructure which is precisely why buying in to a third party’s hosting network provides a much more reliable solution.

What happens in the event of disaster?

Hardware failure is one risk, but what about fire, flood or theft? As a business, you’re more than likely to have insurance to cover such events but again, think about the issue of continuity. Your insurance will pay up – eventually – but what happens in the meantime?
With your server onsite and eliminated by the disaster, your business is off-line and off the radar for as long as it takes you to get up and running again. And you’ll be starting from scratch.

Outsourcing server hosting means all your data, processes and operating systems are stored remotely, meaning the whole backbone of your business is totally unaffected by any local disaster. In fact, you could be up and running again in just five minutes, via a laptop and wifi connection. Nothing gives your business a better Disaster Recovery solution than that.

How secure is your backup?

Backup is essential to protect from both hardware and software failures, infection or major disasters – but it needs to be a secure system that takes the back-up copies off site. Many small businesses just aren’t equipped to put in a safe enough system to ensure they’re not at risk.

Over half of businesses that lose data, never recover. If you’re backing up to disc – what if the discs are lost or corrupted?

If you’re using external hard drives – where are these being stored? Do you have members of staff taking backup drives or discs home with them for safekeeping? If they are stored in the office, you’re no safer in case of major disaster – yet if they leave the office at all, how secure are they during transportation?

New laws were passed recently in the UK putting any business – no matter how small – at risk of a £500,000 fine for data breaches. No business wants to find itself subject of unfavourable press coverage involving lost data.

Hosting your servers externally automatically moves your data offsite, in total security.
What’s more, choose a good system and you’ll find data backup to a second off-site location is part of the hosting package. Not only can server hosting keep your business operating systems available, but some solutions will automatically back up data for you too. It means that pay-as-you-go price tag is doing two jobs for you.

We hope you found this useful. If you have any questions or would like further information on how your business can benefit hosting with intrahost, please visit our website intrahost.co.uk or call us today on 0800 321 3812.